Tag Archives: mixed-media

The two of us are pleased that we’ve stuck with our blog for a year but we are also very excited about starting this next year with a fresh new focus. We decided to continue with Myths, folktales, stories, poems and tall-tails but to broaden our approach. Instead of picking the tale/story first we are going to take an element, category or aspect of story and approach the creative work in an open-ended way. It is my hope this will expand the imagery to include some surprises and to connect to myths, stories and folk tales in a new way.

February is going to be about BIRDS. We are going to work with the idea of birds. Birds, all types of birds: sea birds, raptors, ducks, forest birds, open field birds, night birds, water fowl, big birds, tiny birds, birds as spirit, their feathers, beaks, feet, eggs, and nests, birds as totems, bird wings, bird flight, soaring, gliding, and flightless birds, diving birds, bird plumage, song birds, bird symbols, and their predators. We will be considering all of it.

Another change is that we are going to take turns posting. Each week one of us will be responsible for the blog post and art piece, (a mixed-media and/or collage) plus an essay, poem or story. Of course, we can always post more often but for sure every other week. We plan to give this format a 3 month trial and then decide to continue with it or make more adjustments.

The idea of this blog is to continue our collaboration, which we both love, to create an art piece on a regular basis, and to focus on the study and application of symbols, story, story telling and creative writing. We welcome your feedback and suggestions. If you’d like to play along with us let us know.

Here we see that a privileged princess with a huge sense of entitlement has carelessly dropped her golden ball down the well. The frog, on hearing her piteous tears, has struck a bargain – bed and board with the Princess for the return of the ball. The Princess, who has no intention of honoring her promise, is lying through her teeth.

On the one hand, this is a story about how power and privilege, carelessly handled, can corrupt decency and erode compassion. The princess has forgotten that with power comes responsibility – the ability to respond – to stay fully present in each moment, giving one’s full attention to the person(s) and events at hand. If she had remembered, she would have thought carefully about the consequences of any promises and lies she might make. She might have considered alternative ways to retrieve the ball, or perhaps just left it down the well. Instead her power has bestowed a false sense of superiority, not only towards others, but also to the normal rules of decency, respect, integrity and courtesy governing relationships.

The frog is just as deceitful as the Princess. He has seen an opportunity to advance his own agenda and seized it. In a culture supporting a more equitable distribution of wealth and power, the frog might have performed a random act of kindness and simply returned the ball. But deprivation and the princess’s callous behavior have hardened his heart. With no other resources to fall back on, desperation has made him manipulative and sly, ready to take advantage of any weakness to exploit another and further his own ends.

Coded in fairy tale form, we find the base cause of social unrest and incipient rebellion. Because it was dangerous to discuss such matters, people’s concern, fear and rage were folded in to the tales and disguised as simple set-ups for happy endings. Despite pretty descriptions of beautiful girlish princesses and faithful servants, dark feelings imbue these tales and often include brutal acts of violence on the way to resolution. Vicious episodes, such as the step-sisters mutilation of their feet in Cinderella, the streak of fish blood in The Fisherman and His Wife or the devouring wolf inLittle Red Riding Hoodspeak to a time as turbulent, chancy and violent as our own. They warn of the dangers of extreme polarization and hint at the possibility of revolution.

On the other hand there is always another, more personal way to read the story. Water symbolizes both the emotional life of our surface personas and also the inaccessible depths of the personal and collective unconscious. The Princess, that young, naïve, immature Queen-to-be, represents the un-individuated self. She has lost her golden ball. Gold represents fertility, life, dominion, warmth and generosity, it is pure and incorruptible. So far, the Princess possesses none of these qualities and thus cannot keep hold of her treasure.

The frog, an amphibian, can live and breathe in two realms. This makes him a spirit guide, or psychopomp – a being who can travel back and forth between worlds. The word for frog in Japanese is kaeru which also means “to return”. Traditional beliefs state that however far you may transport a frog, it will always return to the place of departure. Another meaning ascribed to frogs by the Japanese is “stand-ins.” Some people carry lucky frog charms and believe that when something threatens them, the frog may “stand-in” and face danger in their place. In this story the frog displays all these attributes as he dives into the well to rescue the Princess’s best qualities, which she has shoved into the shadows and neglected. The story reminds me that we can ignore talent and nobility as deliberately as we deny less desirable attributes. It asks me to consider how I sometimes denigrate or reject my own abilities.

Like with dream work, one may read a collage or a fairy tale as if every character and object represents a part of oneself. Taking this approach I’m working with the idea of deception. If everything in the story represents myself, what lies do I tell myself and why? What have I lost and how may I retrieve it?

The Cinderella Story Week#4
In the end Cinderella weds the Prince and lives happily ever after. Her step-sisters are blinded by the birds and the wicked step-mother spends the rest of her years caring for her blind daughters. Personally I thought the punishment of the step-sisters was a bit harsh. The tone was set by the step-mother; she was the example to her daughters so I think she was the one that should have been blinded. I want to give credit to Cinderella’s friends without their help the ending may not have been quite so happy. The Hazel nut-tree and the white bird who I believe contained the spirit of her beloved dead mother and all the other wonderful birds that came in from the garden to help Cinderella sort the lentils from the ashes of the fireplace should receive lots of Cinderella’s gratitude. Even the birds at the end who blind the step-sisters contributed greatly to Cinderella’s happiness.

This version of Cinderella contains a lot of birds. The bird symbol represents transcendence; the soul; a spirit, spirits of the dead, the ability to communicate with the Gods or to enter into a higher state of consciousness. The white bird at the Hazel nut-tree may have been a dove. Doves are often symbols of feminine energies of Peace, Maternity and Prophecy. It embodies the maternal instinct. That is why I believe the tree and the white bird represents Cinderella’s mother.

What is the moral of this story? If you believe in honor your mother and father, remain loyal and kind, work hard without complaint, and come from a loving soul you will be rewarded by finding a loving partner, (Prince Charming), recognition and riches. It also helps if you are very beautiful, because cute counts. Studies have been done and it is true that attractive people are more likely to be given positive attention than someone who is less attractive. People are drawn to handsome people. In most fairy tales the damsel in distress is beautiful. The males of our species are sexually attracted to attractive women? It is built-in to the male’s biology. You just wonder if the story would be quite the same had Cinderella been ugly or ordinary looking?

Several years ago Rhonda Byrne wrote a book called The Secret, which basically re-packaged the words of Christ, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” Of course this idea goes back much further than the Bible, back to the first philosophical musings of humankind. For the mind is truly a mysterious and magical force whose energy has re-sculpted the world’s history again and again and may yet lead to our ultimate destruction as a species.

Cinderella is about wishing – that is to say hoping, desiring, longing for, envisioning, affirming, etc. It’s about the energy inherent in an all-consuming desire and also about the constant, always present, possibility for change.

In the late nineteenth century a quasi-philosophy called New Thought began to arise out of the great spiritualist movement that swept the newly industrial western world. It arose as a reaction to TMI and too much technology, too fast. It continues to this day, transmogrified into a fusion of world religions and historical esotery we call New Age, though even that term isbecoming a little shop-worn.

Say what you will about it, enough experiential and anecdotal evidence has occurred over the centuries to make “the law of attraction” as Byrne’s calls it, one of the enduring belief systems we humans hold in common cross-culturally. Hence the great durability and popularity of the Cinderella story.

And why not? The world is scary enough and in truth we are almost powerless. This story tells us not to despair in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds because we can affect outcome with the power of mind. Even if that isn’t the case, the one truth we can count on is the consistency of change. Everything changes all the time, both incrementally and in giant leaps. The possibility for alteration is always present.

The vehicle of change differs widely in Cinderella stories from around the world. In France we find a fairy Godmother, in Germany a tree, in Egypt a bird and in the Far East a red fish. My mixed-media collage carries all these symbols in the branches of its “Giving Tree.”

The Giving Tree refers to a story by Shel Silverstein; a moral fable that explores what happens to a giver who gives too much and to the child who continues to take forever. How much is enough? Does one really need three new ball gowns? The question highlights the avaricious implications inherent in The Secret’s philosophy.

The Giving Tree took off and sold like wild fire, translated into eleven different languages. In 2013 Parent and Child Magazine listed it among the top 100 children’s books of all time. Obviously, it’s appeal, like Cinderella’s, is universal. Personally, I find the book dreary and disturbing, but I think the two trees are joined at the root.

*The Month of July has 5 Wednesdays in it. This first week Christine is away traveling with her husband. I decided to do a single Post using a one entry Tale. Next week we will have a regular Tale for the month of July.
This first week, Calling the Muses, is a collage inspired by the myth … King Pierus and his Nine Daughters. In this tale the King is so full of pride that he calls the Muses to compete in a singing contest. He claims that his daughters who have been named after the nine Muses are even more talented than the actual Muses. In my collage I have three of the Muses listening to the King’s call.

When the daughters fail to best the Muses they are turned into chattering Magpies. Another tale about the Muses tells how the seven-tone musical scale was the Muses invention. They took the scale from the Music of the Seven Spheres. In modern English usage, Muses are implicit in words and phrases such as “amuse, museum, music, musing upon. Today authors, artists, poets, musicians, and other creative people call or invoke the Muses for help or inspiration.

Homer, In book 1 of the Odyssey wrote, “Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns, driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy.”

I have experienced the presence of a Muse when creating.
It is the feeling the work came through you but not necessarily of your doing. You remember doing the work but it feels like it is being done by another more knowing or talented being. When this has happened I am in awe of the work as much as any other viewer. You feel blessed my the Muses.

This Tale is from the Native American Tribes of the Plains, South Western and Western areas of the United States. Ikto’mi is a man with spider-like characteristics and features. He does everything backwards.

In our tale this week Iktomi says to the gray wolves, “Don’t come and eat my duck feast.” Of course, as soon as the wolves hear that there is a duck feast they promptly arrive to eat his ducks. Iktomi makes the same mistake again by telling the wolves that they hadn’t eaten his buried baking ducks under the coals. So the wolves dig up the ducks and eat them too. By calling to the gray wolves and telling them what they shouldn’t do the wolves quickly react and do it anyway. They come and eat his ducks.

But, at the beginning of the story when Iktomi tells the ducks they don’t want to know what is in his blanket the ducks stop what they are doing and demand to know what Iktomi has in his blanket. This time his backward speak works in his favor. He is able to get the ducks inside his straw hut, and get them dancing with their eyes closed.

He tells them not to peek, not to open their eyes until he tells them to do so or their eyes will turn red forever. After the ducks open their eyes and fly away their eyes do turn red … his curse does comes true.

This is trickster magic. Backward speak, trickery, spells and the unexpected happen all throughout the trickster encounters.

One message this tale gives is the same trick doesn’t always bring the desired results. The Trickster needs to consider the possible outcomes before using the backward speak. Since the backward speak convinced the ducks to do exactly what Iktomi wants them to do, it worked to his favor. But when he uses the backward speak with the wolves, it doesn’t. Actually the trick worked the same, but the outcome was not what Iktomi desired. He really did not want the wolves to eat his ducks.

There is a Blue’s song that speaks to this very situation. The title of the song is … “Don’t advertise your man.” The message is, if you tell everyone how great your man is then some other woman will go behind your back and win him away from you. In the Iktomi tale he advertises his duck feast and the wolves eat all of his dinner. Next time, Don’t advertise your duck feast.

Tar baby is one of my favorite stories of all time. Decades later, “Please, please don’t throw me in the briar patch,” still makes me laugh. It’s become a stock phrase around our house. Thinking about the briar patch, I started wondering about mine. I suppose it consists of the leaves of books and thorny words and ideas supported by stout pragmatic branches; a place where I’m extremely comfortable, but many people aren’t. We all have our briar patches though, full of hidey holes and escape routes, places to take refuge in even from ourselves.

This is a story about the Trickster getting tricked! Tricksters, as the stories never hesitate to point out, are particularly susceptible to getting gulled. Br’er Rabbit is shadow boxing with the Tar Baby. Cockiness and self-righteousness have landed him in this pickle and pride gets him more deeply enmeshed by the second. Sound familiar? It does to me. The Jungians say annoyance with the character traits of someone else occurs because suddenly we find ourselves staring in a mirror and disliking what we see. The stubborn intractability of the Tar Baby is a part of Br’er Rabbit he doesn’t want to acknowledge. Being a Trickster he wants to be cool, suave and flexible, able to shuck and jive his way out of any situation with insouciant aplomb! Heaven forbid he should be seen to be stuck in his own shit, like all the other marks. But that’s exactly what happens. Nevertheless, our wily rabbit has at least one more trick up his sleeve and escapes into his first last and best defense – his childhood refuge – the place where he was “born and bred.”

This collage grew out of this picture of a tar-covered rabbit sent to me by a friend. It took me a while to track down the artist’s name. When I found Darla Jackson’s site, I fell in love/awe with her ability to render animals so faithfully. It’s obvious to me that she observes them carefully them, with deep respect and eyes of love. Isn’t it interesting how influenced we are by everything around us? Working with a picture of a sculpture, I unconsciously created a three-dimensional collage. I sliced up an old champagne cork and raided the button box to make Tar Baby’s eyes and ears. Adding a dimension to the collage made me think about layers. This story is layered in meaning – On the surface we’re shown the value and pitfalls of an elaborate social system of greet and respond that allows people to safely establish who exactly they are talking to and how far they can trust them (kinsfolk being more reliable in theory than strangers). Then there’s a lesson in the futility of emotion-based argument. At bottom we hit perennial wisdom “Know Thyself.”

In the same way I figured out what my briar patch consists of, it behooves me to ruminate a bit on the nature of my Tar Baby.

The Serpent is one of the oldest and most widespread mythological symbols. Its meanings are highly complex. The Serpent is a symbol of life and death, it is solar and lunar, light and darkness, good and evil, wisdom and blind passion, healing and poison, spiritual and physical rebirth. The presence of a serpent is often associated with female deities and the great mother.

In some cultures snakes are fertility symbols, and in others they symbolize the umbilical cord, joining all humans to Mother Earth. The snake is assigned many aspects. It is shown as a Dragon, a snake twining up a trunk or staff, and as a Naga sheltering the Buddha.

In Christian mythology, the snake acts as tempter. It convinces Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge. The snake is evil, the devil himself. In many religions, the devil is a supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind.

After Eve and Adam have eaten the fruit, God confronts them. Adam blames Eve and Eve blames the snake. God expels the two of them from the Garden and places a Cherubim at the entrance to keep them out. In his anger, God tells Adam that he will live by his labors, Eve will suffer in childbirth and the snake will forever be the lowest of the low.

In Gnosticism, the snake is thanked for bringing knowledge to Adam and Eve. With knowledge, Eve and Adam are freed from the Demiurge’s control. I want to give credit to the serpent and to the woman who listened to the snake. Eve took a bite of the apple and a) she didn’t die, except to her old naive self and b) she was wiser and more conscious for having done so. By sharing her discovery with Adam he became wiser too. So instead of seeing the snake as the devil and the apple as sin, we need to be thankful for the disobedience, the curiosity to listen to something outside of the box, explore life’s possibilities, grow beyond childhood and listen to the wisdom within.